From Suriya to Aamir, ' Ghajini' enjoyed an all-India success

Over a career of 32 years and more, Hindi film icon Aamir Khan has maintained a very sedate pace as far as his number of films are concerned. Beginning from 1988 with a super hit ' Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak' Khan has starred in just 40+ films during this tenure. From 2000, Aamir has been featured in 20 films, beginning with 'Mela' and presently 'Laal Singh Chadha' awaiting release sometime by Christmas this year.

Very notably, his 2008 release ' Ghajini' an all-time blockbuster was his first film remade from southern film industry. Of course, very early in his career he had acted along with Superstar Rajinikanth in a film ' Aatank hi Aatank' (1991) which went unnoticed despite big names like Om Puri and a few others then.

This A R Murugadoss creation, basing itself on two Hollywood hits released in 1951 and 2000 was a medico- social thriller. The hero develops anterograde amnesia, defined as 'short-term memory loss' and he is pushed into avenging the murder of his lady-love by a clever mix of technology and intuition.

The film, when made in Tamil was the director's third film and was released in 2005. In a very short time, Murugadoss had earned a name for his presentations as being 'entertaining and engaging'. He was roped in by megastar Chiranjeevi for ' Stalin' in 2006 and two years down the line, a very highly impressed Aamir took a shine to his style of working and consented to act in the Hindi version of the Tamil hit. Of course, it had already impressed the neighbouring Telugu audience, giving both Suriya and music director Harris Jayaraj a higher slot in the box-office rankings. The film's heroine Asin made her debut in Hindi and went on to act with big names like Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar in subsequent years.

For the Hindi fans, Aamir decided to rewrite the climax and replace the Tamil music composer with A R Rahman, with whom he had already made a successful combination in 'Lagaan'. Made with a budget of Rs 62 crore, it went on to earn seven times its production cost and was the first film to break into the Rs 100-crore club in Hindi. So much so, it was added to the coveted list of all-time grossers in Hindi cinema till yet another Aamir film ' 3 idiots' replaced it a year later.